Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The siding project

When we bought this house 2 years ago, we knew the siding was "marginal" and that it would have to be replaced. This is the summer for that project. It's ironic, or we're gluttons for punishment, because this is the second siding project we've had to have done. In our Lynnwood townhouse we had an ASSessment (meaning, required to pay) to fix the defective siding installed by the builder of the condos/townhomes. We learned the hard way to never buy a townhome. Benefit from our mistake and just don't even think about buying from Sundquist or anything built by them, unless you want to get repeatedly *bleeped* up the *bleep*hole. Anyway. I guess this is pretty common of townhomes and condos, unfortunately.

Our current home has Weyerhauser siding, which is downright a defective product. It seriously flakes off in layers. Louisiana Pacific built a similar product and had a class-action lawsuit filed against them about 15 years ago. Weyerhauser company learned from those lawsuits and rallied a bunch of protection so they didn't get sued (I think, I don't quite understand it). So even though our house has defective siding, the previous owners couldn't (or just didn't) get any compensation to fix the siding. We knew this going into buying this house, and it's a good investment so it's easier to swallow than the snake pit situation we were in a few years ago.

So here's what's going on so far.

Day 1- Scrap container and Honey Bucket delivered. Also the siding and materials were delivered, apparently to someone named "Abbie Gerlock." She doesn't live here, sorry. They ripped out the deck walls which used to be solid.

Day 2- Finished deck! They added rails and slats. We will hopefully use the deck more often now!

Day 3 (day 1 of siding repairs)- Almost the whole back of the house is done! A bit of dry rot was found and repaired. The shed that had been added on looks skeletal but was done by the end of the day. We love that there's no more blue!

Dry rot See how the old siding is all layered? The project manager said it's like cardboard.

The new-looking wood square under the vent is where they repaired the dry-rot areas.

Same here, new wood under the window. In the dry rotted area the plywood easily flaked away. They said it was because of the bad caulking under the window. This is the kitchen window.

It's been an exciting and noisy week so far. The kids are fascinated with "the siding guys" and like to wave through the windows.